This is one of the traditional Latvian dishes for the autumn and winter season. It is traditional Latvian Christmas dish! I usually make gray peas more than needed and then heat them up on the next day but not on New Year’s Eve! On the New Year’s Eve, everyone has to eat peas in order not to have tiers for the upcoming year. Not a single pea can be left on the table! And the trick for this is not to eat only peas until all the peas are gone, but to prepare only a few tablespoons for every eater! So it’s still enjoyable!

The recipe is simple:
Grey Peas With Bacon & Onions
Traditional Latvian cold season dish.

Ingredients
- 1 cup big gray peas
- 150 grams smoked bacon
- 1 big onion
- salt to taste
Directions
- Soak gray peas overnight to shorten the cooking time. But soaking isn’t entirely necessary.
- Cook gray peas in salt water until tender.
- Heat oil in the frying pan and fry chopped onion. Stir-fry until golden brown.
- Add chopped smoked bacon and stir-fry until combined and heated through.
- Serve gray peas topped with bacon & onion mix (and a glass of kefir).
Ilze
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I’d like this for sure, we make beans with smoked bacon (more usually with bacon bones) a lot. However, I’ve never heard of ‘grey peas’. Are they by any chance ‘chick peas’? They don’t look like chick peas in the picture as they are usually a much light brown. The New Year tradition sounds fun!
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we love peas and beans here…thanks for the ideas…
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Very interesting tradition! Thanks for sharing!
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🙂 I can’t imagine without that!
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wow – gray peas – another one I haven’t heard of! Love learning about though!
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Check my next post! It is something special!!
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Looks and sounds delicious!!! Love to hear about different traditions, that one sounds like fun!!!
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My follower from UK made this and loved it. Also I sent him a real Latvian gray peas.
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Interesting recipe. Followed you. Hope you follow me back at http://crystalsphotobloggingsite.wordpress.com .
My site is more than photos. Thanks In Advance.
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This is Latvian native dish! It might sound interesting but for us it’s “everyday” dish 🙂 especially at this time of the year!
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